The Project of Digital Marketing Strategy for Naroth Beach Bungalow Resort in Cambodia Bc. Sophalgnean Chan Master's thesis 2020 ABSTRACT Naroth Beach Bungalow in Koh Rong, Cambodia is a newly-built resort yet the owners have a great mindset of entrepreneurs who realize the importance of digital marketing for their business. This study aims to study their current digital marketing strategies, find out how their targets use the digital platform during their consumer decision journey for online ac- commodation booking, and develop a new digital market strategy to help their business grow and prepare for future expansion. Based on the literature review on digital marketing, I did a semi-structured interview with the resort’s owner in order to analyze the current digital marketing and SWOT of the resort and I did the competitors’ analysis using the secondary data. Based on the literature review on consumer behavior in the hotel industry and guests’ data from Booking.com providing by the owners, I did the other semi-structured interview with four major targets including German, French, British and Spanish to create consumer personas and a customized con- sumer decision journey map. As a result, from all of my analyses, I recommend the resort to focus on OTAs, create a website with a blog, continue improving their social media, and create better contents in all their platform. Importantly, I built the strategies based on the McKinsey consumer decision journey. Keywords: hotel industry, digital marketing, social media marketing, website with blog- ging, SEO, content marketing, online advertising, online travel agencies (OTAs), McKinsey consumer decision journey. ABSTRAKT Naroth Beach Bungalow v Koh Rong v Kambodži je nově vybudované letovisko, ale majitelé mají velké myšlení podnikatelů, kteří si uvědomují důležitost digitálního mar- ketingu pro své podnikání. Tato studie si klade za cíl studovat jejich současné strategie dig- itálního marketingu, zjistit, jak jejich cíle využívají digitální platformu během své spotřebitelské rozhodovací cesty pro online rezervaci ubytování, a vyvinout novou strategii digitálního trhu, která pomůže jejich podnikání růst a připravit se na budoucí expanzi. Na základě literární rešerše o digitálním marketingu jsem provedl polostrukturovaný rozho- vor s majitelem resortu, abych analyzoval současný digitální marketing a SWOT přepraco- vání a pomocí sekundárních údajů jsem provedl analýzu konkurentů. Na základě literární rešerše o chování spotřebitelů v hotelnictví a údajích hostů z Booking.com, které poskytli majitelé, jsem provedl další polostrukturovaný rozhovor se čtyřmi hlavními cíli, včetně němčiny, francouzštiny, britštiny a španělštiny, za účelem vytvoření spotřebitelských osob a vlastní cestovní mapa pro rozhodnutí zákazníka. Výsledkem je, že ze všech mých analýz doporučuji resort, aby se zaměřil na OTA, vytvořil web s blogem, pokračoval ve zlepšování svých sociálních médií a vytvářel lepší obsah na celé své platformě. Důležité je, že jsem vytvořil strategie založené na spotřebitelské rozhodovací cestě McKinsey. Klíčová slova: hotelnictví, digitální marketing, marketing sociálních médií, web s blogem, SEO, marketing obsahu, online reklama, online cestovní kanceláře (OTA), McKin-sey spotřebitelská rozhodovací cesta. Acknowledgements I would like to express my sincere thanks to all people who had contributed ideas, sup- ports, and encouragement to help me writing this paper. Without all of them, it would not have been possible to accomplish this project. First of all, I would like to express my great gratitude and appreciation to my family for their love, support, and trust in me. Without them, I would not be able to come this far to achieve my dream. Especially, I would like to dedicate this work to my daddy Chan Bopha for his strong support of my decision and my lovely mommy Hong Leakhena for her care and motivation. I would like to thank my good friends, Miss Ly Pagnaleaksmy, Miss I Ratha, Mr. Ly Ratana, and Mrs. Ly Reasey for their mental support and help throughout my academic life here. Moreover, I would like to thank Mr. Ly Venghong and his wife, the owners of Naroth Beach Bungalow who provide me the opportunity to interview them as well as provide data for this work. Without them, this paper would be impossible to be accomplished. Lastly, I would like to thank my supervisor, Mrs. Miloslava Chovancová, and all faculty members, especially Mrs. Pavla Bartošová, Mrs. Silvie Pfefferová, Mrs. Andrea Bartošíková, and Ign. Lucie Neubauerová for their assistance throughout my time here in the Czech Republic. TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................. 10 OBJECTIVES AND METHODS OF MASTER THESIS PROCESSING .................. 12 I. THEORY ..................................................................................................................... 14 1 DIGITIAL MARKETING ......................................................................................... 15 1.1 INTRODUCTION TO DIGITAL MARKETING............................................ 15 1.1.1 WHAT IS DIGITAL MARKETING? ....................................................................... 15 1.1.2 BENEFITS OF DIGITAL MARKETING ................................................................... 15 1.2 DIGITAL STRATEGY MODELS ..................................................................... 16 1.3 TYPES OF DIGITAL MARKETING TACTICS ............................................ 17 1.3.1 SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGIES ............................................................................ 17 1.3.2 ONLINE TRAVEL AGENCIES (OTAS)................................................................ 20 1.3.3 WEBSITE WITH BLOGGING ............................................................................... 22 1.3.4 SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION (SEO) ........................................................... 24 1.3.5 SEARCH ENGINE ADVERTISING (SEA) ............................................................ 25 1.3.6 CONTENT MARKETING .................................................................................... 26 1.3.7 VIDEO MARKETING .......................................................................................... 27 1.3.8 EMAIL MARKETING ......................................................................................... 27 2 CONSUMER BEHAVIOR IN SERVICE ................................................................ 29 2.1 INTRODUCTION TO CONSUMER BEHAVIOR ......................................... 29 2.2 CHARACTERISTICS OF SERVICE ............................................................... 29 2.3 CONSUMER DECISION JOURNEY IN HOSTEL INDUSTRY .................. 30 2.4 CUSTOMER PERSONA .................................................................................... 31 2.5 DIGITAL CONSUMER JOURNEY MAP ....................................................... 31 II. ANALYSIS .................................................................................................................. 32 3 OVERVIEW OF KOH RONG IN CAMBODIA ..................................................... 33 3.1 GEOGRAPHY ..................................................................................................... 33 3.2 HOW TO GET THERE FROM SIHANOUKVILLE? ................................... 33 3.3 ACCOMMODATIONS IN KOH RONG .......................................................... 34 4 OVERVIEW OF NATROTH BUNGALOW RESORT ......................................... 35 4.1 NAROTH BEACH BUNGALOW PROFILE .................................................. 35 4.2 SERVICES ........................................................................................................... 35 4.3 ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE ................................................................ 36 5 SITUATION ANALYSIS ........................................................................................... 37 5.1 PESTEL ANALYSIS ........................................................................................... 37 5.2 CURRENT DIGITAL MARKETING STRATEGIES .................................... 41 5.3 DIGITAL MARKETING ANALYTICS ........................................................... 43 5.3.1 FACEBOOK ....................................................................................................... 43 5.3.2 INSTAGRAM ..................................................................................................... 48 5.3.3 BOOKING.COM ................................................................................................ 49 5.3.4 TRIPADVISOR .................................................................................................. 54 5.3.5 AIRBNB ............................................................................................................ 55 5.4 SWOT ANALYSIS OF NAROTH BEACH BUNGALOW DIGITAL MARKETING .......................................................................................................... 55 5.5 COMPETITOR ANALYSIS .............................................................................. 56 5.5.1 COMPETITORS .................................................................................................. 56 5.5.2 COMPETITORS’ SOCIAL MEDIA PERFORMANCE ................................................. 59 5.5.3 COMPETITORS’ OTAS PERFORMANCE ............................................................. 61 5.5.4 COMPETITORS’ WEBSITE PERFORMANCE .........................................................